He walked over their bodies, distantly feeling the surging heat from a nearby building. He was in the middle of the destruction now and felt as impotent in the face of it as he had from a distance. The urge to simply turn and rush back to the Water Palace bubbled within him. He could grab Ria and whoever else was around to save and simply run away. Admit defeat.
No.
“You’re not one of mine,” came a deep, familiar voice. “How did you arrive in this city, kinsman?”
Avarice looked almost unchanged from when Damon had last seen him. He wore a golden circlet and white robes with gold trim, an ostentatious outfit in the best of times, a petty insult to wear amid the sacking of a city. His robes were dirty at least, smudged with soot, visible bloodstains along the sleeves.
He wasn’t alone, either. Stepping out of the smoke to one side was Austine, blond hair pulled back into a warrior’s tail, face cold and empty of emotion. Damon felt so much anger toward him, useless anger. He’d accepted that he couldn’t kill Austine, but not what that meant.
“Were you imprisoned by the Rem?” asked Avarice. “A trader or explorer, perhaps?”
“I walked here,” said Damon. He slowly lifted his myrblade, pointing the tip at Avarice even as his heart began to rattle a warning through his chest.
The Godking smirked back at him. “In that case, you walked to your death,” said Avarice. “Do you have a name?”
“I do,” said Damon. “We’ve met before.”
“Have we?”
“I threw a sword in your face.”
Avarice’s smirk became an outright smile. “That was you? I must say, you do know how to leave an impression. You’ve come a long way since then, it seems.”
Danger. Everything about the Godking, his expression, his stance, screamed of hidden danger. Damon tried not to think of the endless ways in which this monster of a man could kill him instantly, from riddling him with shards of metal pulled from the area, to simply lunging forward and tearing his heart out.
“Why are you doing this?” Damon asked. “What is it you want here? The Athlatak is not one of the Forsaken. There’s nothing for you in this city.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Avarice. “But even supposing I did, who’s to say I need any more reason for a conquest beyond the fact that it’s available to me? This land is fertile and untamed. Conquering it is no different than scraping lichen off a stone.”
Damon tightened his grip around his myrblade’s hilt, all of the aimless, nervous energy pouring out into his stance. He looked away from Avarice’s empty eyes and found Austine’s, instead.
“Are you happy?” Damon shouted at his old friend. “Are you content with your service to your master?”
There was a beat of silence that spoke volumes.
“You may answer him,” said Avarice, with a wave of his hand.
It was as though the Godking had physically removed his fingers from Austine’s mouth. Words began pouring out, so quickly that Damon missed the first few.
“…think I wanted this?” Austine asked. “I’m a servant, Damon. No different from you, though I know how you try to tell yourself it isn’t so. Would any of this be any different if Avarice had arrived in Yvvestrosai first, and Wrath had reacted?”
“You can tell yourself that if it soothes your conscience, but we both know it isn’t true,” said Damon.
“Isn’t it?” shouted Austine. “What will you say to Wrath when she finally offers you her crest? Do you suppose it will even be an offer? Or will it be her swooping in during your time of ultimate need, to take advantage of you?”
“Speaking from your own experience, I see.”
“You’re damn straight I am!” Austine’s face took on a dark, self-pitying cast. “I’m enough of a friend, Damon, that I genuinely hope you can learn from my mistakes instead of repeating them.”
“Enough.” Avarice raised a hand as though halting a carriage. “I find it rather fitting that the two of you can speak with such love and enmity for one another, but we only have so much time. Servant… Dispose of this interloper.”
The crest on Austine’s neck burst into a brilliant golden glow, mirrored by the light shining from his eyes. He drew his sword and rushed forward, straight toward Damon.
CHAPTER 35
Damon knew without needing to be told that Avarice would love nothing more than to watch him and Austine fight to the death. He’d paid them for as much once before, as it happened, but their duel in the Gilded Amphitheater felt so far off as to be remembered with the quality of a dream.
He wasn’t going to fight Austine. Not there, in the burning of the city, at the Godking’s request. Damon was both too sober minded and too desperate to take on his old friend in a pointless fight that neither of them, in their hearts, truly wanted.
He nodded to the ice elementals in hiding, having used the distraction of the conversation to move into position. One of them surged out from behind an undestroyed building, tackling Austine from out of view. Man and monster landed in a tangle of limbs and snow. Damon stabbed his myrblade into the cold ground and willed ice up over Austine’s wrists, neck, and ankles.
“Not this time,” said Damon. “If I fought you, here and now, one of us would end up dead. Too many will die today, as it is.”
He’d intentionally frozen ice over Austine’s mouth, as well, though left his nose open for breath. Whatever other words might have needed to be said could wait for now, forever, in truth.
“Interesting,” said Avarice. “Most interesting, indeed. Your sword has quite the enchantment. May I see it up close?”
He flicked a finger, attempting to draw Damon’s myrblade from his hands using his power over metal. Damon manifested the sword’s ice thorns, encasing the weapon in cold and shielding it from Avarice’s influence. He saw the Forsaken’s mouth twitch with annoyance.
“You’re not used to people standing up to you, are you?” asked Damon.
“If you wish to forfeit your life, that’s your choice,” said Avarice. “I hope you die at peace and without regrets, given the sacrifice you’re making for these savages.”
Damon took a cautious step back. Avarice wasn’t trying to intimidate him. He was simply speaking as he would to anyone, in any context, and it rendered his words doubly chilling.
Damon attacked first, more to get a sense of how outmatched he was than to score a hit. He actively suppressed the urge to run, to give in to the desperate seduction of his own terror. This was the stupidest thing he’d ever done, aside from throwing his sword at Avarice the first time around.
His slash missed, though, of course it did. Damon angled his sword as to sink the tip into the snow at the end of the arc, and he manifested the enchantment to cover himself completely in ice the instant after.
Avarice’s counter struck the back of his head, shattering the ice he’d just created and knocking him through the air. He acknowledged that had he not shielded himself with his myrblade, he’d now be missing most of his skull.
“Pathetic,” said Avarice. “What is your plan, swordsman? Are you hoping that Wrath will show herself and save you if you stall for long enough?”
Damon pulled himself from the crumple in which he’d landed and brought his sword back up to guard. He took a few shaky breaths and watched Avarice, ready to create another makeshift ice shield at the first sign of aggression.
“As it happens, I’m also hoping my sister makes an appearance,” said Avarice. “She’s always been my favorite. I hate her so much.”
The Godking lunged left, moving so fast that Damon only tracked his direction from a blurred afterimage. He dodged backward, bringing up a wall of ice between them more in hopes of giving himself another clue to the Forsaken’s end position than to truly slow him down.
Avarice burst through the ice. Damon preemptively slashed at where he guessed Avarice’s neck would soon be. He caught only thin air, and an instant later, was flying through the air.
The blow had caug
ht him across the chest this time, hard enough to leave the front of his body numb and give him a temporary reprieve from the expected pain. Damon landed in the snow again. It took a force of will to rise back to his feet, and he didn’t manage it all that quickly.
“You’re not weak, or pathetic, or powerless,” called Avarice. “You’re simply mortal. You can’t keep up with me. You can’t match my strength. The truth is, your death here will not be dignified, and I’m past the point of offering you mercy. You should have—"
Avarice liked to talk, and he didn’t pay nearly enough attention to his surroundings mid-speech. It was this sole fact that let Damon’s ice elementals surprise him. He sent two diving at Avarice from different angles, the first reaching for his face, while the other tackled his legs.
Both ice elementals made contact, more from Avarice’s decision not to dodge than from dexterity on their part. The Godking seemed amused… right up until the ice elemental on his upper body began freezing his eyes shut.
“Grah!” roared Avarice. He spun in a circle, body blurring as the ice elementals were both disintegrated into shards of broken frost. His glare settled back on Damon as soon as he’d wiped his eyes clean, but he didn’t attack.
The sound of creaking metal echoed from a number of places within the shadows of the burning city. A small force of copper spiders assembled around Avarice. Damon had an instant of hope that the encounter might shift toward them smashing their summoned monsters together, rather than fighting directly, but it faded as Avarice pursued a less predictable strategy.
One by one, the copper spiders began to transform, each of their metal carapace’s unraveling like folded parchment. Avarice shifted the flattened sheets of copper toward him, where it began changing shape, falling into place on his legs, across his chest, and over his head to form a perfect suit of armor.
Though, calling it armor seemed an understatement. It was more as though he’d created a new body of metal which his already powerful form could reside within and control. It made for a depressingly ominous sight as Avarice began to move toward him, metal armor singing as it scraped at the joints.
Damon gave ground, summoning his ice elementals to him with each step. As tempting as it was to try to imitate the Godking and form a suit of ice armor of his own, the idea was foolish, if only because he could understand the difference in strength of ice and copper. Instead, Damon played up his fear, leaving several ice elementals in hiding, ready to attack from Avarice’s blind spots.
He whipped his sword into one of his old gladiator flourishes, feigning an obvious charge. Avarice roared with laughter and pulled back an arm to swat him away. Damon silently gave the command, and the ice elementals leapt on him.
His plan was simple. Avarice had taken the carapaces of the copper spiders, so why not do to him what Damon had already done to his metal monsters? The ice elementals found the chinks in the Godking’s armor and began pouring their chilling magic in through them. Avarice flailed his arms sideways in surprise, knocking away one of them, but leaving two more free to freeze him from the inside out.
It worked… for a few seconds.
“Coward!” bellowed the Godking. He stomped a foot, and his copper armor burst into pieces, each shooting outward from his body with deadly speed. Damon threw himself to the ground, but still felt a piece of metal bite into his shoulder as copper shrapnel tore through the surrounding area.
He winced, body curling with pain involuntarily, as Avarice came to stand over him. He still had his myrblade in hand, but the idea of making a last, desperate strike felt pathetic and useless.
He stared up at the Godking, the most hated of the Forsaken, and wondered how many men had been in this position before, dying after doing their best.
“Stop!”
A loud, high-pitched, slightly accented voice cut through the moment. Damon rolled his head sideways enough to see Lassus, the Athlatak, hurrying down one of the foot trails through the snow-covered flowers.
He wore leather armor, and his hair hung in a complicated braid across one shoulder. He walked slowly and his expression was serious, despite the obvious tremble in both of his hands. He was unarmed and posed about as much threat to Avarice as any fifteen-year-old boy would.
“This is my city, Venmalani,” said the Athlatak, enunciating carefully. “Take your evil and be gone!”
Avarice stepped over Damon with a long and slow stride, as though he were attempting to draw closer to a spooked animal. He looked Lassus up and down and gave a small shake of his head.
“You really are nothing,” muttered Avarice. “And I had harbored such hopes.”
“I am more than you could ever realize!” boomed the Athlatak. “I am the leader of a dozen clans! I am a warrior, bred and recognized and—"
Avarice seized him by the head, lifting him into the air like a little girl might carelessly pick up her doll.
“Do you have any idea how it feels to be alone?” whispered Avarice. “To be surrounded by mortals, people who grow old and die and fade? Every life a meaningless, arduous slog toward oblivion, and they do it all with smiles and ignorance and platitudes. I had harbored such hopes for you. And now, such disappointment.”
There was a hideous crunch as Avarice closed his hand, killing Lassus with as much effort as a normal man might use to crush a bug. He threw the corpse aside and began walking deeper into the city.
Damon struggled to his feet, even though he was far too late to do anything more than die a pointless death. He saw Avarice turn toward him, saw the blur of motion, and felt a burst of pain as he was knocked backwards and through the wall of a building.
CHAPTER 36
Damon was in pain from head to toe, inside and out. The building he’d been thrown into wasn’t on fire, but that was only a small comfort. His head throbbed in agony, and he felt nauseous as he tried to sit up and saw the world spinning around him.
How much time had passed? He suspected he’d been knocked unconscious, but the sky outside was still dark overhead, and fires smoldered throughout Yvvestrosai. He could see Lassus’s corpse on the ground and felt his heart ache in sympathy as he thought of how Ayisa would react to the loss.
The thought brought his focus back to what he was doing, and the people still at risk. Damon forced himself up to his legs and staggered up the snowy road, each step sending pain stabbing, through the innumerable injuries he’d suffered.
There were bodies everywhere. The sheer scale of the destruction made him feel a strange sense of fury toward Avarice, as much rage as it was fear. To be capable of destroying a city was different from the act of destroying one, and the resolve to commit to so much death was something Damon simply couldn’t understand.
He reached the top of the slope, furrowing his brow as he tried to remember where the Water Palace should have been amidst the city. He glanced from side to side before the realization hit, and hit hard. He was looking right at it, but the structure was nearly unrecognizable, veiled in smoke, wreathed with flames.
Damon broke into a run that sent pain stabbing through half the joints in his body. He was shouting, first Ria’s name, then just noise. He ran as fast as he could, sprinted ahead of his own racing thoughts.
The front entrance had collapsed into a pile of debris and rubble, and fires had been set in front of and beneath the windows on the upper floors. Avarice had wanted to turn the palace into a deathtrap. The Godking was nowhere to be seen, but even if he’d been gloating over his handiwork, he would have been Damon’s last priority.
It had to look worse than it was. The inside of the palace must have been shielded from the flames, at least to some degree. Damon told himself this over and over again. He forced himself to believe it as he rushed past one of the fires and began smashing the glass out of a window with the pommel of his myrblade.
A thick, acrid-tasting plume of smoke greeted him. He felt woozy even as he made an effort to keep from breathing it in. He tottered through the window, ignoring the cuts t
he remnants of glass left on his hands and shins.
The palace’s interior was no less ablaze, no less chaotic, than what Damon had seen throughout the rest of the city. A corpse greeted him next to the window through which he’d entered. One of the people Ayisa and Ria had tried to save… or Ayisa. Or Ria. The body was too charred for him to tell.
“Ria! Ria!”
He shouted at the top of his lungs, forcing her name out through the smoke, in between coughs. Damon couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him. He stumbled into a fire that ran the length of an entire hallway and heard a voice. Not the one he wanted—needed—to hear.
“Careful, Damon!” whispered Myr. “Even you can take damage if you encounter a hot enough flame!”
He wanted to scream at her. How could he care about himself in that moment? He felt hot as he stumbled down the hallway, through the inferno, but the feeling came more from his heart than the blaze. The noise was oppressive, a rumbling, evil crackle that sounded from all directions.
“Ria!” he shouted. He punched a wall, leaving a hole in the heat-compromised mortar. He ran through the palace, feeling his clothes begin to ignite and crumble from his body.
He found bodies everywhere he looked. The air was thick with smoke and the off-putting scent of charred flesh. He felt as though he was picking through a funeral pyre, the somberness of ritual stripped away in favor of morbid reality.
Damon refused to think of anything other than finding her, of undoing what he’d let happen. He refused to think at all, too disparaged to have hope, but too desperate to give it up. Debris fell on him from above. The ceiling was caving in. He stumbled through the orange blaze, inhaling enough smoke to make him dry heave even as he continued shouting her name.
He came across few other bodies, but suspected it was due to the rising tide of flames obscuring his view. He never stopped shouting for her, even as true despair set in, and the tears began to streak down his smoke-stained face.
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